Going ahead with its ambitious high-speed train proposal, the Railways has joined hands with Japan to begin the ground work to reduce travel time by half on the Delhi-Mumbai corridor.

Railways will procure a new set of trains with electric locomotives to run on the existing Delhi-Mumbai track.

“The pre-feasibility study for running train at a maximum speed of 160-200 km per hour is being carried out by Japan on the existing Delhi-Mumbai route and they (Japan) will submit the report next month,” said a senior Railway Ministry official involved with the project named Golden Rail Corridor.

Currently, Mumbai Rajdhanis run at an average speed of 100 km per hour and take about 15 hours to reach the destination.

“Our aim is to reduce the travel time by almost half between Delhi-Mumbai and for this we have to procure train sets to run at higher speed on the existing track,” the official said.

Train sets are like EMU trains consisting of self-propelled electric locomotive and 10 to 12 modern coaches.

“Since our existing locomotives are not designed to run on 200 km speed we have to go for the train set in the Golden Rail Corridor,” he said, adding “We have to strengthen the track, bridges and modernise the signalling system before increasing the speed to 200 km per hour.”

There will be a new fare structure for the high-speed train for the Golden Rail Corridor.

Asked how the existing track will take the load of new trains, he said, “All the freight trains will be shifted from Mumbai-Delhi route after the commissioning of the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor. So, we will utilise the additional capacity of the existing track for the train sets.”

The Western DFC is likley to be commissioned by 2016-17.